Albright’s Russia Trip Has Healing in Mind

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s planned trip to Moscow next week--the first by a ranking U.S. official since Vladimir V. Putin became acting Russian president last month--marks the start of a concerted Clinton administration effort to rebuild relations that have soured dangerously over the past five years.

“This is not the normal kind of meeting,” said an administration official who requested anonymity. “This is not a trip for splashy results but for quiet consultations to build things back into the relationship. We want a big-picture discussion, a way-forward discussion.”

Albright is scheduled to arrive in Moscow on Monday to co-chair a Middle East development conference with her Russian counterpart, Igor S. Ivanov, before engaging in a day of extensive talks on bilateral issues.

Albright’s mission comes amid a growing sense that this crucial bilateral relationship is on the brink of a new era, one filled with doubt and uncertainty but also potential. Despite such destabilizing matters as last year’s NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, a Russian money-laundering scandal, the unknowns surrounding Putin’s intentions and the controversial conflict in Chechnya, many of those who follow U.S.-Russian relations believe that the new era provides at least the chance to reverse the decline.

“It all turns on what political leaders on both sides think is possible,” said Coit Blacker, a former White House advisor on Russia policy. “It can be either an important moment to get things done before [the U.S.] election, or they can throw up their hands and say it’s all just too hard.”

Either way, analysts in both countries agree that a priority is rebuilding trust and confidence in a relationship desperately lacking in both.

“We must try to return to a dialogue where there’s some respect, even where the power disparities are enormous,” said Robert Zoellick, an undersecretary of State during the Bush administration. “This is going to take a real transformation because there are lots of scars there.”

U.S. policymakers said they hope to start with a series of small measures--what one official called “baby steps below the CNN threshold”--rather than with a grand, new program. The official cited as one example the recent move that allowed Russian officers access to a U.S. military base in Colorado on New Year’s Eve so they could be assured that U.S. nuclear missiles contracted no unexpected millennium bugs. Ongoing cooperation between Russian and North Atlantic Treaty Organization peacekeeping forces in Kosovo--a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic--also was noted as a small but significant confidence-builder.

Meanwhile, new trouble looms, such as the administration’s desire to modify the 1972 U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in ways that would allow the United States to deploy a missile defense system against a possible attack from what it views as “rogue” states such as North Korea. Moscow claims that such a system would devalue its own aging nuclear deterrent and set off a new arms race in which it could not possibly compete.

Russian and U.S. officials are conducting exploratory discussions in Geneva on how such an ABM treaty modification might be bundled with other initiatives, including: U.S. help to shore up Russia’s aging missile defense system; Moscow’s ratification of the 1993 START II treaty to reduce strategic nuclear arms; and the beginning of negotiations on START III, which would further reduce nuclear arsenals.

During her talks with Russian leaders, Albright is expected to stress that “rogue” states pose a threat to both countries and that Washington and Moscow should cooperate to counter them.

The scars in U.S.-Russian relations stem in part from differences on a variety of major issues. Russia opposed President Clinton’s successful efforts to expand NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic; condemned the U.S.-led military operation against Yugoslavia; came out against U.S. and British airstrikes against Iraq in 1998; and fears that Washington wants to undermine the primacy of the U.N. Security Council--a venue where Moscow still has clout through its veto power.

At the same time, the United States opposes Moscow’s bloody military foray into the breakaway republic of Chechnya, worries about leakage of Russian nuclear expertise to Iran, and has become disillusioned by levels of corruption in Russia so great that they have undercut the impact of international aid and slowed the pace of reform.

But more than the differences, distrust and thinly veiled contempt have corroded the foundations of a relationship that began the post-Cold War era amid high hopes. For Russia, struggling to retain some vestige of its former greatness, the mood has spawned a disillusionment that borders on a feeling of betrayal.

As a consequence, Russians have low expectations for any contacts with U.S. officials in advance of Russia’s presidential election March 26 and U.S. elections Nov. 7.

“There is little each side can offer the other,” said Andrei V. Kortunov, president of the Russian Science Foundation. “Both countries are facing elections, so the situation is not favorable to new initiatives. On the contrary, in both countries there is pressure to get tougher.”

What especially grates members of Russia’s foreign policy elite is what they see as a kind of dismissive arrogance on the part of U.S. officials who, they say, frequently pretend to take Moscow’s concerns to heart, then quickly ignore them.

A bit more graciousness on the part of the world’s most powerful nation, they say, could have gone a long way toward preventing the erosion of the relationship.

“Americans are trying to convince us that we should put up with being a second-rate country. They would be much better off not saying such things at all,” said Anatoly I. Utkin, advisor to the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Russian lower house of parliament. “For most Russians, such words are a major insult they cannot forgive.”

He added: “Russians’ inherent patriotism will never let them say, ‘Who cares? Let’s be like Belgium.’ This is a mistake, a major mistake, that the United States is making.”

And Kortunov noted: “There is always room for being more cooperative, even in terms of rhetoric. In many cases these are nuances, but they make all the difference.”

By contrast, Russians feel little animosity toward Western Europe even though the countries there strongly supported the intervention over Kosovo and consistently have dished out harsher public criticism of the Russian campaign in Chechnya than has the United States. Russians say this only underscores that U.S. errors have been as much a matter of style as of substance.

U.S. analysts agree that the administration’s tone and style frequently have been counterproductive. Zoellick argued that an earlier sense of respect and dignity that helped underpin the relationship has been lost. Others agree.

“They’ve been made to feel irrelevant, that when push comes to shove, they’re no longer in the top 10,” said Toby Gati, a senior White House advisor on Russia early in the Clinton administration. “We need to change that perception.”

U.S. policymakers say they are aware of a style problem--one administration official said it had been noted in “umpteen” policy papers written for Albright. But they insist that frank, open discussions are vital to any healthy relationship.

“When we talk about it [Russia’s weakness], there’s a sense of us being preachy, telling them what to do, how to run their country. But we also have an obligation to be very clear on this,” noted a second official. “There’s always going to be tensions there.”

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Marshall reported from Washington and Reynolds from Moscow.